Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

so the other afternoon i went to adjust my chain tension and lo and behold what do i find:


it had appeared pretty recently as i hadn't noticed it before nor had the 2 others who had also worked on it.

so the next day i took it over to S&R Pro to see what they could do about it, ~$450 to remove, prepare, TIG weld, and refit the swingarm for me and they can't do it til next week. the dude advised me to also see the kwak dealer to see if they could do anything about it warranty wise (even though i had none) cuz it looked pretty weird.
kelen kwaks were pretty helpful and took a look at it, made a few notes, and said they'd call the head kwak office and see if there was any history of swingarms cracking and whether or not i could get a replacement from the factory on warranty. they agreed that it was very unusual and had never seen anything like it. unfortunately no luck there.
so i went home, made a few phone calls to various wreckers, prices ranged from $400 at EC wreckers to $200 at metros. decided to go sus out liverpool bike wreckers in emu plains. went over to have a look, it was still attached to what was left of a 99 zx6r, and the dude said "$150" i said "done!" and he dismantled and removed it for me on the spot.
took it over to Quadie's that night to fit it, 2 days of grunting, cursing, and swearing, over an extremely stubborn swingarm bolt that refused to come off, later...
Quadie gave it a mild tap with a hammer and:




pretty lucky i noticed it when i did!

anyone here have this problem before?

Definately lucky you found this when you did...

holy snapping duckshit batman, that could have been very nasty indeed, never seen anythink like that before.

well spotted.


Matt

holy crap

matchan wrote:holy snapping duckshit batman, that could have been very nasty indeed, never seen anythink like that before.

well spotted.


Matt

Yeah you always hear that you should check your bike over regularly (a good time is when you give it a clean) but how many of us bother....I know I don't

Now we can see how it can pay off

That's a real close call.

What bike is it ?

slojo wrote: an extremely stubborn swingarm bolt that refused to come off

Doesn't help now but in most cases the answer to stubborn swingarm bolts can often be heat applied to the outside using something like a hot air gun.

Good pickup in the first place though. Could've been nasty.

I think we should all go check our swingarm now.

Glen wrote:

slojo wrote: an extremely stubborn swingarm bolt that refused to come off

Doesn't help now but in most cases the answer to stubborn swingarm bolts can often be heat applied to the outside using something like a hot air gun.

Good pickup in the first place though. Could've been nasty.

hehe yeah that was our next plan of attack after the impacting spanner.

btw sorry for not mentioning in the previous post but it's a 1999 zx6r.

Fark, Fark, Fark, fark and fark.

That's not good. I just cringe at the outcome of something like that.

I would be pushing this point through Kwaka, as the weld has split, rite along the join. There is a definate problem there that needs investigating. Hope it's a one off, but it may not be and that's a concern.

Christ!

Well spotted on that one.
Once had a mech from a bike shop down the road have a vfr750 swingarm do a similar thing outside my mums old shop while he was doing 60kmh.

again well spotted.

wow...shit aye...lucky find..glad u got another one on the cheap(ish) ...
glad u didnt find out abt it the hard way!!

I'll be right back, just going out to the shed for a sec....

hope they fixed that problem from the 1999 model to the 2000!!!
geez, i'm gunna be paranoid about that now
*goes and checks weld for third time tonight*

Still having a nervious twitch evrytime i look at that